Pat

I'm not a big bloody mary fan, but how would taking a gazpacho recipe and adding vodka work? There's a Cholula dry chile-lime seasoning I like (found it at WF, I think) that works to my liking as a bloody (or virgin) mary mix, but it doesn't thicken the product. I'm not very fond of vegetable or fruit juices, except for tomato and grapefruit, so I drink a decent amount of tomato juice for my vitamin c.

My husband and I finally got to Bebo last night. The food was wonderful, and we ordered a lot of it to try as much as we could. The service was basically good, though it was uncoordinated in places and a couple of things got forgotten. The breads were delightful, and I probably should not have indulged as much as I did before having having ordered any food. The crusty bread was addictive, but the sweeter, cakelike bread was awfully good too. My husband got an appetizer of baked polenta with sausage ragu, which he devoured. (That may have been a special.) I got a little bite and it was, indeed, a very satisfying dish. I got a salad of radicchio, endive, and (grilled?) onions with balsamic dressing, which was different from what I expected. I loved it but hadn't expected it be a warm salad. I like a little surprise with my meals, and it was fabulous warm. That will make a nice winter salad. It was also a bit bigger than I expected and I hung onto it throughout the meal, thinking I would eat more of it. In the end, I got about half of wrapped up to come home. (ETA: I just found the menu online. I neglected to note the first word of the description: roasted. I also ordered the pasta fagioli, which I think was my favorite dish of the night. When I go back, I want to try more of the menu, but this is one thing I will definitely be ordering again. And for $5.25! Because I had ordered both soup and salad, the waiter carefully questioned me as to in what order I wanted them brought or if I wanted both at once (which I opted for). While I had decided that I wanted to order the bucatini all'amatriciana--probably my favorite Italian pasta preparation--for my main course, I was also tempted by the squash-filled agnolotti special. To resolve this dilemma, we got one order of the agnolotti (in a sage butter, I think?) and split it, which they kindly brought out on two plates. Getting the 3 (or 4?) pieces did enough to satisfy my curiosity and left room for the bucatini as well (well, some room; part of that came home too). My husband got the braised pork ribs with cannellini beans, which was a filling main course. He finished it all, though I got a little. I particularly liked the flavor of the beans. We were too full for dessert, though I wanted to order the hazelnut cake. Next time I'll have to be more restrained, and maybe that will leave room for dessert. When we got the check, we could not believe how inexpensive such a large, satisfying meal could be (and that was even with my ordering a glass of barbaresco). Looking back at the itemized receipt as I type this, I realize that we were not charged for the agnolotti, so it should have been a little more expensive than it was. On the whole, service was fine. The issues were fairly minor and seemed to be coordination issues, as when they tried to bring us olive oil for the bread when we had no bread plates to put it on or when they brought the dessert menu before our main course had been brought out. There were also times when I thought I wasn't communicating too well with our waiter. At the end of the meal when we declined dessert, he urged us to order coffee. He was rather insistent, so I said I would have a regular coffee (I never know what to call it. American?). Then he asked my husband if he wanted coffee, and he said, "No." A few moments later, our waiter brought the check. No coffee. No coffee listed on the check. I hadn't really wanted the coffee, so I wrote it off as miscommunication. When we were at Laboratorio maybe a year and half ago, a couple near us had an adorable infant with them. After at first being surprised to see a baby there, I looked over at Chef Donna, who was looking at the baby and just beaming. He seemed to take great delight in having the baby there. I didn't know if these were people he knew or not, but he seemed quite pleased to have the baby in the room. Something about that just made me happy. As I sat there, I thought how much it felt like being in a small village restaurant and how suited the chef seemed to that. Bebo seems to be that restaurant.

I had that when I was there a couple of weeks ago. I thought that was a great glass of wine and set out to find a bottle of it. I found it at the Total Wine in Landmark/Lincolnia for (I think) $15.99. I'm looking forward to opening it.

I have to agree with that. The blog is a separate issue from this board until someone uses a name that invokes the blog to talk about the restaurant on this board and refuses, upon inquiry, to disclose his/her affiliation. Even saying there is no affiliation would have answered the question.The blog and this board were separate issues until that point. I read a few restaurant blogs, and I've always thought that waiter, with his emphasis on the allegorical, must be using poetic license to change details to tell his story. That strikes me as smart, whereas giving very specific details that can be tracked seems inadvisable. If I were someone who liked to pray in a restaurant before a meal--whether one of those ladies or not--I would be horribly offended by that blog entry. If there is a fraction of a % of a chance that you can be identified from your description of your job on a blog, it behooves the writer to be very careful to minimize identifying details.

I didn't throw it away! I'm so happy Searching through endless boxes of old recipes and clippings to organize the mess, I found it. It's is my handwriting, not hers. I thought she had written it out, but it's in pencil in my youthful handwriting and is so faded I can barely read it. Either I copied it from something she had written down or she dictated it. I'm leaning towards the latter from the way I've recorded it. It's rather cryptic and isn't even titled. I don't remember it using celery, and I don't put that in. The only meat bones I remember her using were a package of short ribs. Beef Vegetable Soup 1 1 /2 quarts water 1 can tomatoes 1/4 cup barley (extra) salt and pepper celery onion parsley flakes meat bone Simmer one hour. 5 potatoes, diced 3 carrots Cook another 1/2 hour 1/2 pkg. limas, peas, cut corn, cut green beans (mixed vegetables)

leftover meatloaf and roasted potatoes

Thanks! (And, I doubt it needs clarifying, but the tare feature is not a separate button on my scale. That's why I forget it's there. I used an analog scale before.)

Thanks. Is there much variation between different types of flour in terms of weight? Yes, it does, and I forget about that. I'm not really that mathphobic, but it must sound like it I'll give weighing flour a try when I make bread next.

I have one but generally only use it for recipes that call for ingredients by weight. I don't know how good a job I'd do at converting from volume to weight. (And the one I have is fairly small with a flat top, which means I also need to account for whatever container I put the ingredients in to weigh them.)

One other thing I noticed from the video is that he scooped the flour into the measuring cup, rather than spooning it in. For baking, I generally spoon the flour into the measuring cup so it doesn't pack down. For bread, since I add extra flour as I'm working with the dough, I don't want to have excess flour to start with. My dough was a little stickier than his but did have a decent amount of stringiness from the gluten. I was pretty impressed that I ended up with a decent loaf even after my mishap . My husband thought the bread was great.

According to the retitling of this thread, he's now at IndeBleu

I noticed when I was there this weekend that one can also order goose and capon for Thanksgiving. I recall that the original request said that capon was okay too.

Not to give a blow-by-blow account, but I baked the portion of the dough that survived . It was hard to get the timing right since it was a smaller amount. I think I may have left it in slightly too long, but it's got a nice crust. It looks like a ciabatta with a crusty crust. When I was tapping on it to see if it was done, I managed to poke my thumb through it, and the inside is nice and soft. I think I managed to salvage something from this project. (To get it into the cast iron dutch oven I used, I folded the towel back against itself once to get the dough loosened and then picked up the whole thing and dropped it into the pot. This was the easiest time in the process that I had dealing with the dough. No problem with the stickiness at all.)

I would go with some kind of green salad, just to have that base covered. You don't need anything fancy and can use bottled dressing. Instead of a relish plate (presuming that's for an app), what about a few cheeses and crackers (or bread)? If you have bread for that, you don't need to have rolls with the meal.For Friday, this Martha Stewart recipe for bulgur and mushrooms is really good:

I had thought of using bread flour, but I'm low on that and have lots of APF. I have another bread I'm making soon that requires bread flour specifically, so that's why I opted for all-purpose for this. The next attempt I'll try whole wheat and APF.

Ah. I used all APF. I'll try half whole wheat next time. Thanks for the idea.

Oh, I can top this, and I haven't even tried to put what's left of the dough in the oven yet. The dough seemed to be progressing just fine, but when I made it into a ball, it didn't quite hold together well enough. The transfer from work surface to nearby cornmeal-covered cloth resulted in half the dough flopping onto the edge of the counter and, before I could do anything about it, onto the floor. And our floor is not what you would call, uh, clean. So I have a small mass of dough which is not solid enough to be a ball, rising for the 2 hours. I'll see what happens. I can usually deal ok with fairly wet dough, but this dough is so wet that it's really loose. I'll try again and make sure the cloth is immediately next to the work surface and far back on the (clean) counter.

That's how my mother made stuffing, but she didn't use apple. Giblets were cooked that way but usually went into the gravy. Ok, so it's not exactly the same

Ah, thanks for clearing that up. Instant made me think fast-rising, but that didn't seem to go with the super slow process. This makes more sense. Thanks for the information. I had noticed recipes not calling for proofing but hadn't pieced that together.After seeing fast-rising yeast everywhere for a while, I've been having trouble finding it lately. I'd try 3 or 4 stores a time before I'd find any, and the supply would be almost gone. If anyone else is having this problem (maybe it's just me ), I hit the mother lode at the Shoppers Food at Potomac Yards. I've got enough to last me quite a while now.

My silly question is, when the recipe calls for instant yeast, does that mean regular granulated yeast in a foil packet (as opposed to a yeast cake)? I figured that, since the point is a slow rise, instant doesn't mean fast-rising.

Aha! We had mussels with butter, garlic, white wine, lemon, and parsley for dinner last night, along with garlic bread made from a baguette, and a frisee salad with radishes and cucumbers. (No dessert, though.)

I used Great Country Farms this year and was quite satisfied. I picked up because they deliver but not to where I am. I'm not sure if they come to your area or not. (It was a loony idea on my part to drive out there every week, but my schedule was pretty open this summer and I'm glad I did it.)http://www.greatcountryfarms.com/

The Marvelous Market location across from Eastern Market is now open. I got coffee there a bit ago, and they couldn't get the cash register open . Still working out the kinks, I guess. They've got a few tables set up outside. Today would be a nice day for picking up some food inside and sitting out there.

goldfish crackers, cheddar (why have they started putting penguins in with the goldfish? )

I think they're fairly popular--or at least they've previously been introduced--in the UK. I first heard about this on a mailing list with a lot of non-USAians. Interesting concepts